June Wrap-Up

June 17:  Today was our last day of school.  The kids got home early and got right in to having fun.  Jason was invited to go on a bike ride from the falls down into Carnation.  His new bike made the ride much easier than it would have been otherwise.  Sarah Ricks sent me a few pictures of the boys.

They caught the trail at this tunnel

   

And they ended in Carnation at Tolt-McDonald 

The Ricks were also nice enough to take Carly and Jason to the Federal Way swimming pool with them the following Friday.

June 18:  It’s no secret that we have a reputation for getting good deals on things.  A few months ago Justin discovered Dixey’s coupons on the back of the Fred Meyer receipts.  Buy a drink, get a free sandwich.  So for about $10-15 we can feed our family of seven and then fill in any gaps with their all-you-can-eat ice cream cones.  Dinner is served!

   

Drew really got a kick out of Justin’s twin towers cone

June 24:  I love seeing my kids spending their time enjoying a good book.  We’ve found some great books for Jason this summer and he’s already read several books including Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang and the BFG and is excited to watch the movie renditions of both.

June 27:  Abigail has been excited to attend her first session of EFY (Especially for Youth) program in Tacoma.  I was looking forward to taking her and Morgan down so I could be there when they settled into their dorm room and be able to watch them start their adventure.  I was raised in Utah where the majority of my peers shared my same faith and beliefs.  For these girls, walking onto a campus where hundreds of youth GET them has got to be an amazing feeling.  I hope that in a few years she can attend EFY in Utah where that feeling would be even more magnified.  To be honest I was jealous of all the fun awaiting her.  I never attended EFY though I’m not sure I would have fully appreciated the experience – it really is different for these teens that are so in the minority in their everyday lives. 

We snuck in Abigail’s first summer lunch date on the way down (she was technically supposed to go the prior week, but with Tyrone in town it didn’t happen) – it’d been a long time since we’ve been to Olive Garden and now I remember why ;)  The company was great though and they really do have yummy breadsticks.

These two girls had a fabulous week and met lots of great youth. 

I think it’s pretty funny that she’s using my college bedding – perhaps it might be time to retire them :)

Since I hadn’t heard anything from Abigail all week, on Thursday I sent her a text:

Me:  How’s it going stranger??

Abigail:  Good

Me:  Clearly you are home sick ;)

When I related the above conversation to my friend Laura she said that clearly Abigial is her mother’s daughter.  I have no problem completely stepping away from home and totally enjoying myself in the moment.  I’m so glad Abigail had such a great experience!

June 28:  T-Mobile Tuesday scored us tickets to see Finding Dory.  We had to choose a time late enough in the day that Justin could leave work and join us, but early enough that the kids could still make it to youth night – so we landed on a 3D showing!  Drew loved the glasses, but only when the movie was NOT on :)

And since we apparently have no shame when it comes to scoring free stuff, Justin bummed additional movie tickets off of his co-workers so we could get four more tickets to take some friends to another movie that evening – Shallows.  Two very different fish movies in the same day. 

June 29:  Jason’s turn for a summer lunch date.  He chose Red Robin.  Justin and I had just gone there over the weekend, but with a little customization my chicken sandwich was super yum. 

My license was expiring on my birthday and since I wanted an enhanced license that meant I needed to go into the department of license office to renew.  The wait time only showed 19 minutes online, but that was misleading.  It may have only taken 19 minutes to talk to start the process, but it took over 2 hours to walk out of there with my temporary license.  And after all that, they snapped a picture of me mid-blink.  The whole process was pretty irritating.  Thankfully, I had my birthday BOGO Cold Stone coupon that helped Jason and I feel better about the last two hours of our lives.

July 1:  Sleeping babies are always the sweetest.  Back in the fall Drew started taking off his pajamas at night so we put them on backwards so he can’t unzip them and that problem was solved.  Now he’s started taking off his clothes at naptime then he’ll tuck himself in with his blankets. 

On this particular afternoon I went in to wake him up so he could go to the Mariners game.  Besides no clothes I was surprised and pleased to see he didn’t have his binkie in his mouth.  Oh, my sweet boy!